Homemade Butterfinger Bars

The original recipe is not mine, just google it and you will find a lot of them.

1 cup candy corn1/2 cup creamy peanut butter2 cups chocolate discs

Melt half the chocolate and spread out onto a silpat or parchment paper, set aside to cool

In a microwave safe bowl add candy corn, heat for 30 seconds and keep repeating until smooth, then add peanut butter, mixture will become stiff.Let cool a little, then spread over top of chocolate, then melt remaining chocolate and spread over top of candy corn mixture, let set then cut into bars.

What I did was a little different, and this is that recipe, this was a large batch

To a microwave safe bowl add half the milk chocolate and half the semi-sweet, I also like to add a tablespoon of Crisco shortening to my chocolate to make smoother. Heat for 1 minute, stir, then heat again in 20 seconds intervals, stirring each time until smooth.

Pour out all over the silpat, let set to cool, once cool, then in a large microwave safe bowl add candy and peanut butter. I added some peanut butter first then some candy, then peanut butter again then candy then peanut butter again.

Heat for 1 minute, stir, then heat for 1 minute and 30 seconds, stir again, then heat in 20-30 second intervals until candy corn is completely combined into the mixture.

TIP – take the candy corn and add it to your food processor to chop up, I think doing this will help in melting easier and then it will not take that long in the microwave.

Let candy corn mixture cool just a bit, then spread it over the cooled chocolate, spreading it to the chocolates edge.

Now melt the same way as the first, the remaining chocolate and pour over top the candy mixture.

Let set up at room temp for at least 6 hours, if you can’t wait you can put it in the fridge to firm, but let it get to room temp before cutting or chocolate could crack.

Well if you are not a sports fan and don’t live in Cincinnati, then you may not even know what I am talking about 🙂 but for a year the city has been planning for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.

Let me say the city was crazy, I did go downtown a couple of days but if you didn’t get down there early to find a parking space, lot or garage it was nuts. So to say the least I just drove around and then went back across the river 😛

But the Home Run Derby was exciting since Todd Frazier of the Cincinnati Reds won it this year!!!

All and all I think Cincinnati and Northern Ky. did an outstanding job hosting this years All-Star Game.

I did take some pictures, I have some here that friends took as well, but as I say it was an “All-Star Week”

There were are couple birthdays in our family and of course I made a few things, so check out my pictures and enjoy!!!

First of the birthdays was my little niece I made cupcakes 🙂

She likes presents and bubbles 🙂

Around town they made these mustaches statues here are few of them

here is the picture of all of them that they made, pretty cool 🙂

Here are few of my souvenirs

Buskin Bakery made the cookies got to love that!!

Here are some pictures of the Red Carpet Parade,
the players start at their hotel and end at the ball park, all on red carpet 🙂
Grand Marshall – Barry Larkin

Ka has a terffic blog, he has amazing Recipes, How to Guides and Cooking Tips, so please go over to his blog and check out all those good things he has to offer 🙂

There are few rules to accepting the award you must tell everyone 7 things about yourself and nominate 15 blogs for the award.

So here we go 🙂

1. I worked on a cruise ship for 6 1/2 years

2. My first career was in Theater Costuming before going into Culinary

4. I love Hockey

5. I worked for our home town Hockey Team by sewing names and numbers on their jerseys

6. During the baseball season, I am on call for the Cincinnati Reds and the away teams that come into town and play the Reds, to sew their uniforms (sewing names & numbers), for any last minute call ups.

7. The most I was ever paid for sewing 1 single uniform for an away team was $100.00
and that was for 1 hour of work, that included the call, me driving to the ball park
(i live very close) getting in there sewing the name and number and then back in my car. 🙂

Bonus – here’s the picture 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the few things that most of you did not know about me 🙂

Here are the blogs that I think are fantastic and I give the “One Lovely Blog Award” too

Well Christmas is upon us once more a year is ending and a new one will begin!! The #1 thing that I am grateful for is my parents, I love them dearly and they always have been there for me through everything, I am truly blessed!!

An of course I am thankful that I have a job (s) 🙂 a house to live in a car to drive and I have many friends, friends that I have know forever it seems, co-worker friends and you, yes you blogger friends. Many of you I feel like we’ve known each other for years, I love reading your blogs about food, recipes, family, gatherings, trips, parties I love reading it all. And to ALL of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Okay so below are some recipes from my Holiday Open House, just a few, if there is something your looking for let me know I will get you the recipe. Of course while making some of the most recent treats, I have been rushing home from work and get started and then forget to take pictures so there are few 🙂
Oh and at the end there are couple a cute funny photos 🙂

Fudge, this recipe is so easy, its out there, and I use it for all of my flavors, just use 3 cups of chips, whatever combo or flavor, same with extract whatever flavor and you can fold in anything, I did the recipe below, also used white chips and peppermint with crushed candy canes, one I did dark chocolate and folded in chopped andes mints so you can be creative.

Line an 8×8 square pan with plastic wrap and lightly spray with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a non stick medium sauce pan add all chips, condensed milk, extract, cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, once chips are almost all melted remove from heat, continue to stir until all is melted. Stir in walnuts and marshmallows, then pour into spray pan, smooth out evenly. Sprinkle with Christmas candy décor sprinkles, press down lightly. Refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours to set before cutting into squares. Store in an airtight container.
**Can’t have nuts, use Butterscotch chips instead of PB, and use not walnuts.

Bark is so easy, you put chocolate in a double boiler with crisco shortening, at least that is what I do, I also use the microwave too, you just have to watch it, and then once its melted and smooth pour on to parchment smooth out and top it with what ever you want 🙂

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 baking pan.
Add melted butter and graham cracker crumbs to a bowl and mix well, pour into baking pan and press mixture over the bottom of pan. Sprinkle coconut and nuts over top of crumbs evenly, then pour can of milk evenly over top of that, then sprinkle with holiday chips. Bake for 25-30 minutes for until light golden brown. Cool completely in pan before cutting.

On this batch in the pictures, I used the andes peppermint crunch chips with criso in the micowave, tossed with popcorn, then pour out to cool, then I meltes about 1/2 cup of the andes mints and drizzled that over top.

Last one Christmas Crack

The recipe is certainly out there, you use saltines in most recipes, I use those and I use graham crackers. I also this time use Special K cereal as the base…and people like it 🙂

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper or foil and spray with cooking spray. Place crackers to line the pan, cinnamon side up, there can be just a little space between crackers.

Bring sugar and butter to a boil in a saucepan over med-high heat, once it come to a full boil, boil for 3 minutes and do not stir during the 3 minutes. Pour mixture over crackers, place in oven for 5 minutes, put peanut butter in microwave for about 30 seconds to get soupy.

Remove pan from oven drizzle peanut butter over top and then sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Let set for 5 minutes to melt, spread melted chips and top with M&M’s or toffee bits, let cool over night. Once firm, break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper or foil and spray with cooking spray. Place crackers to line the pan, salt side up, there can be just a little space between crackers.

Bring sugar and butter to a boil in a saucepan, once it come to a full boil, boil for 3 minutes and do not stir during the 3 minutes. Pour mixture over crackers, place in oven for 5 minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle with either Mint/chocolate chips or white chips, . Let set for 5 minutes to melt, spread melted chips and then top with peppermints or nothing, let cool over night. Once firm, break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

Crackers and graham crackers

Special K Cereal

Butter and brown sugar in pan

bring to a boil

pour over top

bake for 5 minutes

I topped the Special K batch with a mix of Peanut butter, milk and dark chocolate chips

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
use at wooden spoon for this
Spray with cooking spray a large glass mico safe bowl, add sugar, syrup and salt, stir to mix. Set microwave for 3 minutes, watch closely once the mixture starts to boil continue to cook for 4 more minutes (you will need to add more minutes)

Remove from microwave immediately add nuts, butter, vanilla and cinnamon, stir quickly to combine and cook for 2 more minutes. Immediately remove add baking soda and stir to combine, mixture will foam up, once mixed pour out onto lined baking sheet and spread out with spoon. Let cool at room temp, once cooled break into pieces and store in an airtight container.

I bought some pre cut cookies and they did not have crisp edges as it you would use cookie cutters, and I only had some bright colors so here are some of my fun Christmas cookies 🙂

Love my tie dye ginger 🙂

I also go the best gift ever, if you have not heard of this stuff, its funny and it works 🙂
Poo-pourri…yes it is what you think 😛

Check out the Holiday Commercial and please watch the whole thing…it will give you a chuckle!!

And lastly meet my new friend “Pixie Puddin'” my friends named her on facebook it was a fun time picking a name 🙂

Well it is almost Christmas and for Holidays everyone loves homemade sweet treats!!

And for the last two weeks I had Holiday Open Houses in a few of our stores 🙂

I made tons of sweet treats, shared my recipes and displayed those goodies in different ways as gifts, to give customers ideas on for Holiday gift giving.

I made fudge, bark, Christmas crack, Holiday muddy buddy mix, snowman soup among other things, I had over 20 recipes to share. It was lots of fun, I had Christmas music playing (under my table), I gave everyone lots of ideas for their Christmas gifts.

Check out some of the pictures

Getting started 🙂

Some baking dishes

i have lots of things to fill 🙂

Recipes

Recipes

Recipes

Tips on packaging 🙂

things are getting filled

Chocolate covered popcorn

christmas bark

white chocolate bark

Christmas fudge

A hot cocoa kit, cocoa, marshmallows and peppermint stir sticks

fun

gathering it all together 🙂

some cute mason jar ideas

Setting up at one of the stores

its coming together

display

more of the display

here is a close up

Lot of stuff was found at the Dollar store and I made it look cute 🙂

This was it set up another store, I added the Candy Canes
and did the green fabric a little different 🙂

I love that I had the baking supply display behind me, people
were just asking what to get, I was filling up their carts 🙂

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Chef Amy

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